After a recent oddity-filled trip through Georgia to visit relatives, I decided to do a special edition of Odd Travels this week. My fiancé and I took several detours to visit some unusual sites I’d always been curious about – such as the mysterious Georgia Guidestones – and, along the way, found some interesting roadside attractions we didn’t know existed, such as an eerily picturesque abandoned mental hospital.

Alabama has plenty of freak-tastic sites but Georgia is no slouch in the weird department. Here are just a few of the things we saw (see more detailed information in photo cutlines):

Cartersville, GA

We stopped for lunch in the picturesque town of Cartersville, which despite its location on the outer edges of the Atlanta Metro Area, was quiet and quaint. It was once the seat of Bartow County.

We didn’t stay long but did take photos of the 1929 art deco Grand Theater; the Cartersville Depot that was once on the Western Atlantic Railroad and is now a visitor’s center; the Ross Diner, a tiny meat-and-three eatery that’s been around for 65 years; and the golden-domed Bartow County Courthouse built in 1902.

No one knows who ordered construction of the massive monument on which 10 “guidelines for humanity” are outlined in six languages. A man calling himself R.C. Christian ordered the slabs carved from a local monument maker in 1979, saying a group of people funded it and wanted to remain anonymous. It was erected in 1980 on the highest point in Elbert County.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

Bowman, GA

On our way toward Athens, we came across the tiny whistle-stop town of Bowman, population about 850, which was founded in 1879 and incorporated in 1906 along the Elberton Air Line Railroad. We took photos of Bowman’s Famous Little Police Station, which town council member Gwen Bryant told me was built in the late 1960s as an office for the town’s one-man police force; the town well covered by the historic well house built sometime before 1906; and the quaint downtown area.

Bryant said the town council recently voted to renovate the housing for the well, which was dug just a few yards from the tracks to provide water for the coal-powered trains. She said she saw the Silver Comet, a streamlined passenger train whose route goes into Alabama, in 1962 when it was diverted from its usual track by a wreck.

Athens, GA

Home to the University of Georgia, which was founded in 1785, Athens is a combination of rowdy college town and quaint village: It has lots of restaurants and nightlife housed in historic buildings and mingled with monuments. Some interesting sites in Athens included the World’s Only Double-Barreled Cannon, built as an experiment in 1863 and never used in the Civil War; the 1904 Athens City Hall; and the Tree That Owns Itself, an oak on a patch of land deeded by its owner to the tree so that it could never be cut down.

We also visited two sites honoring the group R.E.M., which got its start in Athens. We visited the Murmur Trestle, a preserved railroad pictured on the back of the band's 1983 album “Murmur,” and a preserved R.E.M. steeple at the site of a church-turned-apartment building where the band, then called Twisted Kites, played its first gig.

Putnam County, GA

On our way to Macon, I spotted a sign for an oddity I’d always been curious about but hadn’t realized was on our route: The Rock Eagle Effigy. I’d read about it and knew archaeologists believe it was a ceremonial site created by natives. At the site, we learned it was constructed 1,000 to 3,000 years ago and the effigy was created from thousands of pieces of quartzite laid on a mound. The bird shape is 102 feet long and 120 feet wide. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and overseen by the University of Georgia.

Milledgeville, GA

To describe the scene at Central State Hospital, a 1,750-acre, 212-building facility in Milledgeville, would require too much space but the short version is that this once-bustling site is now very much a ghost town, where rows and rows of massive brick buildings built in the 1800 and 1900s stand silent guard over a pecan-tree grove where patients once exercised and played.

The facility opened in 1842 as the Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot and Epileptic Asylum and at its height housed 12,000 patients.

Only 45 of the 212 buildings are in use today after services were moved in 2010 to more modern facilities. According to Keith Smith, a local historian who moonlights as a security guard at the property, sight-seers and ghost-seekers often visit the campus, although the closed buildings are now posted as dangerous to enter. We had to satisfy ourselves with taking photos from the outside, which was eerie enough, and walk through the cemetery where an estimated 4,000 people are buried, including settlers from the 1700s and hundreds of patients, identified only by small metal markers with numbers on them.

Smith told us an episode of “The Originals,” a spin-off of the TV show “The Vampire Diaries” was filmed in the Jones Building.

Join al.com reporter
Kelly Kazek on her weekly journey through Alabama, and from time-to-time surrounding states, to record the region's quirky
history, strange roadside attractions and tales of colorful characters. Call her at 256-701-0576 or find her on Facebook.